


welcome to the real world

by Blue_Rive



Category: Deltarune (Video Game), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Deaf Frisk (Undertale), Gen, Nonbinary Chara (Undertale), Nonbinary Frisk (Undertale), Nonbinary Kris (Deltarune), an asriel at college fic!, asriel is a dumbass, asriel-centric, be warned i know nothing about college, chara is a third-year linguistics major, for now it's a oneshot, frisk and asriel are both first years, frisk and chara being there doesn't make sense for the worldbuilding of dr but fuck it they're there, frisk is studying polisci asriel is studying astronomy, i was too lazy to come up with a different holiday so they celebrate christmas sorry, is it a college au if the character is canonically in college, kris isn't in it very much, might elaborate on this with another chapter might not idk, platonic saying 'i love you', stealth edited 4 hours after posting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21577714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Rive/pseuds/Blue_Rive
Summary: Here's to nowAnd to nothing elseIn the crowdAll by yourselfTo the lows and every highThe hellos and the goodbyesIn this moment, I could die with youAsriel leaves Hometown.
Relationships: Chara & Asriel Dreemurr & Frisk, Chara & Frisk (Undertale)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 24





	welcome to the real world

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaa yeets this here
> 
> some notes- frisk is deaf, and while I know some ASL, i'm not deaf myself, so please tell me if i mess up anywhere!

Asriel had thought a lot about what his roommate would be like. They’d be the first friend- or enemy, but he was trying to stay positive- that he made outside of Hometown. 

He was waiting in his room, wondering if he should start unpacking, when two teenagers entered the room, laughing to each other about something. They’re humans, which took Asriel by surprise. He knew it was a largely human city, but he was still imagining his roommate as a monster for some reason. He’s never met a human other than his sibling before. These two looked much more similar to each other than most related monsters, even, and it’s hard for him to tell them apart. 

The one on the left grinned at him and signed something. Asriel’s slow at translating it into a spoken English sentence, but gets hold of the GLOSS- ROOM-MATE, with a questioning tilt of the head, then they fingerspelled out F-R-I-S-K, C-H-A-R-A. They had a funny, loose and quick way of signing, words spilling out like all the things they want to say are overflowing and their hands are just barely controlling the tide. 

Chara- or are they Frisk?- nodded and cleared their throat, making little fingerquotes as they speak in an odd accent, something over the top and Southern. “Hey, I’m Frisk, and this is Chara. Are you my roommate?” They drop the fingerquotes and the accent, though they’ve still got a hint of a slightly different one. “I am Chara, their translator.” 

“Oh, I know sign,” Asriel said, following along messily with his hands as he talks. A lot of monsters couldn’t speak out loud, so ASL classes were required at school, and Kris sometimes went non-verbal so he’d made sure to keep in practice. 

Chara raised an eyebrow skeptically, but shrugged. “Less work for me.” 

Frisk flopped onto one of the three beds, looking up at the ceiling. “I wish I could raise one eyebrow like that,” they sign. “All I can do is both at once. And stop doing that stupid accent when you translate for me.” 

Chara settled down on the bed besides Frisk. “You can’t hear.” Their signs are crisp and austere, snapping them out like they were flicking the water off of something. “How do you know I’m doing the accent?” 

“I can feel it,” Frisk signed.

“They are _totally_ doing it, don’t worry,” Asriel signed clumsily. He was enjoying watching this play out. He’d thought all humans would be like Kris, shy and reclusive and a bit weird. 

It strikes him that he doesn’t know much about the world. Everyone he’s met and everything he knows as normal can be neatly packaged away into Hometown. He’d arrived here hours ago, and he still couldn’t stop staring up at the buildings. Everything was so _big_ and _tall_ and _loud,_ and this was only a small city. 

His mom had suggested he go to school in the next town over instead. No one who lived in Hometown ever left, so this would be a pretty big leap already. Police tape had been covering the only road out of town for as long as he could remember, but Officer Undyne had made an exception for him, Hometown’s golden boy. No one had ever expected him to leave.

Frisk clapped their hands next to his ear, jolting him back to reality. “What’s your name?” 

He’s startled, so he yelped “Asriel!” aloud and then quickly fingerspelled out A-S-R-I-E-L.

“Asriel, huh? Nice name,” Chara said out loud. “You like anime, gardening, or D&D?” They counted off the three things on their fingers, then signed the sentence for Frisk’s benefit. 

Frisk groaned, hitting their head against the wall. “Please don’t get them started on anime.” 

“I like anime,” Asriel signed, ignoring Frisk, “and D&D, but not gardening that much. Everyone in my old town thinks I do, because my dad owns a flower shop and I’d help him out a lot, but I don’t actually. I just didn’t want to say so and disappoint him.” He wasn’t sure if he’d said that before- it wasn’t a big deal, flowers unnerved him but he was fine with it- the problem was there were a lot more white lies where that came from. “He got me a houseplant for Christmas instead of what I really wanted, and I had to tell him I loved it.” 

Frisk giggled. “Sorry, but I’m just imagining you…” they flap their hands vaguely, “staring down at this potted plant, right, with just a single solitary tear falling down your cheek…” 

Asriel laughed, and faked a sniffle. “It was just so sad…” 

“What’s your character in D&D?” Chara asked, as the only one of them capable of staying on topic. “I’ve got a tiefling rogue.” 

“It’s Chara,” Frisk signed, “but edgier.” 

Chara flushed red. “They are _not._ ” 

“I DM usually, but when I do play I have an elf cleric.” Asriel opened his suitcase and started to sort through his stuff. His laptop first, covered with hearts and pride stickers and a little Delta Rune sticker in the corner- he put it on the spare desk. 

“We should play together sometime,” Chara said, signing as they spoke. 

“You two should start a club.” Frisk’s flopped upside down on the bed, unruly brown hair with streaks of red falling out of their ponytail and across their face. “A nerd club.” 

It was an insult, but it actually sounded like a good idea. Asriel had been part of a ton of clubs back in Hometown, and it would feel weird to not have any. And it’s not like he and Chara could play D&D properly with their number of people, even if Frisk joined in. 

“We _should,_ ” he said to Chara. “I mean, start a D&D club. It’d work. We could have it in the library, I could put up posters-” 

“Woah, you’re going a little fast there,” Chara said, practically slapping their right wrist in the sign for _slow-_ were they left handed? “We just met. It’s been barely a day since we started school.” 

“I like clubs,” Asriel said, remembering to sign along. 

Chara sighed theatrically, rolling their eyes. “Can’t we wait until next week or something at least to organize it?” 

“Sure,” Asriel agreed readily. Make friends with his roommates, _check._

\---

The next week passed in a bit of a blur. Asriel learned a lot of things at school- that he should not have signed up for an 8 am class, nor as many intense ones as he had, that joining sports teams was a lot harder when you weren’t one of only eleven kids your age who were remotely interested in it, that the seedy-looking lizard monster could get you a fake I.D (Asriel considered it, but swore he could feel his mom glaring at him from all the way back in Hometown, and so didn’t,) and that saying “Golly” unironically would get Frisk to make fun of him relentlessly. 

They do end up setting up a D&D club. Asriel organized it, mostly. Frisk ‘helped’ with the posters at first, but Asriel has to ban them from it. Chara mostly hangs around, commenting on how much glitter Asriel’s putting on the posters. (“You have appeased the rainbow sparkle faeries with this gift.” “Oh, shut up.” “Yeah but _seriously,_ that’s a _lot.)_

On their first meeting, two people show up, a cat-looking monster with sandy fur and an inky mass that’s more like gelatin than anything else. 

“‘Sup?” the cat monster greeted. “I’m Nahn, and this is Smudge.” 

“You could star in a buddy cop film,” Chara commented lazily, lining up their dice in neat rows. 

Frisk was looking through the Player’s Handbook, scribbling down character skills and traits. Asriel noted, a bit smugly, that no matter how much Frisk made fun of them for being nerds, they still knew the rules of D&D and had probably played it before. 

Nahn grinned at Asriel awkwardly. “Okay, so last time I played was when I was eight and I think I was doing it wrong, so will you help me out?” 

Asriel sighed internally, but smiled at Nahn. “Of course.”

\---

Everyone picked it up pretty fast, all things considered, and soon they were past the no-one-knows-what-they’re-doing type of chaos and onto the normal D&D chaos level. 

\---

“You make your way to the edge. Through the fog you can see that there’s a towering cliff below you, stretching down through the mist,” Asriel narrated. “There’s a house down a slope to your left, and you can see a candle flame flickering in the window.”

“I jump off the cliff, welcoming the sweet embrace of death.”

“Chara, no.”

“Chara, yes.” 

\---

“So, like… can I do Animal Handling and tame the squirrel?” Nahn asked.

“...sure?” 

Nahn tossed his d20 onto the table. “Awesome! Nat 20! Something cool happens now, right?” 

“The squirrel grows in size,” Asriel improvised, “revealing secret powers, to, uh, punch things. You now have a loyal squirrel familiar the size of Ratatosk.” 

_“Sweet.”_

\---

“Frisk, stop seducing everyone.” 

“Hey, it’s better than when they cast Vicious Mockery and cussed the monsters out.” 

Frisk grinned. “Being a bard is fun.” 

“Ha!” Asriel yelled, a bit overenthusiastically, and signed his next sentence. “You admitted to liking D&D! You’re a nerd now, it’s official.” 

Frisk punched him in the shoulder. “No _way,_ I’m not like all you losers.” 

“Behold,” Chara muttered, “the wild tsundere in their natural habitat.” 

“Chara you fucking weeb.” 

\---

D&D club was going so well that Asriel joined the QSA, too. And the debate team. And the drama club. And the soccer team. 

...He might be in a little over his head. Not that he was going to admit that to anyone. He drank buckets of coffee and Red Bull to keep himself alert and tried to act like he was going off a solid ten hours of sleep rather than zero. He kept his grades up in all his classes and managed not to fail Physics 100. He smiled at people and sent his mom texts about how much he loved college and tried to be the most put together of the three of them, until he couldn’t do it anymore.

Frisk told him later that he’d fainted on the floor of their dorm room. They’d quickly googled what to do and then left him to sleep, staying in the room.

He’d woken up feeling not tired for the first time in months, and with Chara and Frisk sitting next to him. He needed to do his work for debate team- he reached out for it, but Chara caught his hand. 

“Nope. None of that.” They sign _no_ with their other hand for Frisk’s benefit, tapping their fingers and their thumb together hard. “You passed out, Ree.” The nickname is unexpectedly soft coming from Chara. “You’re going to take a break, or I’ll make you.” 

Asriel pulled his hand out of their grasp. “I’m fine!”

“No, you’re not! How long has this been going on for?”

“A- a while,” Asriel admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Why don’t you just quit something?” Frisk signed, more open and warmer than usual, with a concerned look on their face. “Like debate club,” they continued, leaning more into their typical smirk and loose signing. “Debate club sucks. That’s why I quit.” 

“Frisk, you got kicked off,” Chara signed.

“Which was totally unfair!” Frisk complained. “It was _one_ fistfight.” 

Asriel relaxed, letting them banter. 

They’d found out what a mess he was, and they hadn’t thought of him any different. There’d been no ‘I expected better from you’s or even a ‘wow, guess you weren’t as cool as I thought.’

When the whole town built you up and put you on a pedestal, you couldn’t show any cracks. The higher you were, the harder you fell. But Frisk and Chara didn’t _think_ that way about him. He’d only known them for two months, and they already knew him better than anyone in Hometown- heck, even Nahn and Smudge did, and those two were just friendly acquaintances. 

People had told him he was lucky, back in Hometown, but he thought he preferred this more. 

\---

Frisk made an incoherent noise and flopped onto his bed. Asriel gingerly patted their hair. “You good?” 

“I can’t believe I have to go through eight years of this.” Their signs were sloppy, indistinct and halfhearted. 

...Wait. “Eight years?” 

“We’re only like two months into this year, so four years of college, then I’ve gotta go to law school, and that’s gonna be a mess because I won’t have my ‘good job, you’re disabled and we feel bad for you’ scholarship.” 

Asriel’s brain felt like a Windows loading screen. “You’re studying _law?_ ” 

“What did you think I was studying?” 

“Dunno, something in the arts? Gosh, my whole worldview feels skewed. Frisk the lawyer.” 

“Actually, I wanna be a diplomat. Or run for office.” 

“Oh my god. Chara’s linguistics, right? Please tell me Chara’s linguistics.”

“Yes, dummy.” 

“Okay,” Asriel said, feeling a little less like his worldview was tilting. “And I’m astronomy. Okay. Got it.” 

“You’re so unobservant,” Frisk signed with a grin. “Remember when you kept calling me Chara by accident?” 

It had taken a while for Asriel to get used to Frisk and Chara looking so much alike. He had to tell by context and how they acted for a while- if Chara spoke, that was a giveaway, and they were also much more polished than Frisk.

At some point in the mostly-human college, he’d gotten better at distinguishing them. He could remember that Chara had long straight black hair and Frisk had short curly brown hair, or that Chara was tall and Frisk was short. Sometimes he still wished that he could write their names on their foreheads in permanent marker, though. 

\---

_57 Missed Calls_

_108 Unread Text Messages_

_Mom (August 30, 202X)_

_Mom (Sept 23, 202X)_

_Mom (Sept 23, 202X)_

_krispy kreme (Sept 26, 202X)_

_Mom (Nov 3, 202X)_

_krispy kreme (Nov 8, 202X)_

_Mom (Nov 14, 202X)_

_Catty (Nov 18, 202X)_

_Mom (Nov 25, 202X)_

_Mom (Nov 25, 202X)_

_Dad (Nov 25, 202X)_

_Mom (Nov 25, 202X)_

_Mom (Dec 4, 202X)_

_(September 14)_

_krispy kreme: hey azzy you up_

_krispy kreme: i know it’s like 4 am but go with it_

_krispy kreme: asrieeeeeeeeel_

_krispy kreme: don’t tell me youre actually sleeping at college i wont believe you_

_krispy kreme: seriously_

_krispy kreme: just text me back, ok?_

_(September 25)_

_krispy kreme: heyyy what’s up loser_

_krispy kreme: guess what happened to me today_

_krispy kreme: what you aren't going to ask_

_krispy kreme: betrayed  
_

_(September 26)_

_krispy kreme: hey how's college?  
_

_krispy kreme: miss you_

_(October 31)_

_asriel: Happy halloween!!!!!_

_Asriel: and happy birthday too ig_

_krispy kreme: azzy!_

_krispy kreme: how’s college going_

_asriel: good don’t worry!_

_krispy kreme: going to lots of wild parties_

_asriel: haha no mom would kill me_

_krispy kreme: you’re 18 now why are you still worried abt that_

_asriel: she’s immortal n she can shoot fire kris_

_krispy kreme: fair_

_asriel: frisk might make me go to one though tonight_

_krispy kreme: who’s frisk owo_

_asriel: don’t owo at me u lil shit_

_krispy kreme: :3c_

_asriel: i’m going to uninvite you from all my wild college parties if you keep this up_

_krispy kreme: oh i’m invited???_

_asriel: you have honorary invitation to all the college parties i go to_

_krispy kreme: what would you do if i actually showed up though_

_krispy kreme: gtg for completely unrelated reasons_

_asriel: KRIS_

_(November 25)_

_krispy kreme: yo why didn’t you show up for thanksgiving_

_krispy kreme: mom’s worried_

_krispy kreme: asriel?_

_(December 8)_

_krispy kreme: u better get me a really good christmas present as payback for ghosting me_

_krispy kreme: i miss you_

\---

Asriel had forgotten about Christmas. And, apparently, he’d missed Thanksgiving. That made sense- he was in the middle of his ‘join seventy million clubs and pretend you’re okay until you literally pass out on the floor of your room’ thing around then, and none of his college friends celebrated it. The closest to a reminder he’d gotten were Chara’s sarcastic jokes about colonizers. 

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go back to Hometown for Christmas, anyway. He’d changed, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted everyone there to know that. What if Father Alvin came up to him and asked about church and he’d have to say ‘Uh, actually I’ve been not attending service on Sundays, and also my friend Smudge says that the Angel stuff is lowkey a cult and I’m kind of agnostic now anyway’. 

Now that he was thinking about it, a lot of things about his life in Hometown had been him faking it. For one, he’d wound up in a lot of relationships because he didn’t want to say no to someone asking him out, and he’d joined the soccer team mostly just because his mom wanted him too. (He’d quit college soccer, eventually, at Frisk’s insistence that he had to drop _something.)_

Asriel ends up celebrating Christmas in the city, instead. He makes some excuse to his mom, gets Kris a present through the mail, and heads over to Chara’s apartment for the break. 

It’s surprisingly clean when he walks in, twirling Chara’s key on its chain around his finger. It’s a tiny studio apartment, but there’s actually a _kitchen_ with sparkling countertops and no dishes in the sink, and a made bed. Who _made_ their _bed._ There’s an anime poster hanging up that looks like it was commissioned or something. The long bookshelf along the wall, when Asriel looked in it, mostly had linguistics textbooks and depressing novels. There was also a rack of ornate knives on the wall, and Asriel reminded himself to never get in a fight with Chara. Instead of a Christmas tree, there was a sign in the window loudly saying ‘Christmas is a capitalist holiday.’ All in all, Asriel could appreciate Chara’s interior design choices.

Nobody besides him was there yet, not even Chara, so Asriel sat down on the couch and started scrolling through his phone. 

Soon, there was the sound of someone banging on the door. He got up to open it and got a Frisk limply falling into his grasp. Asriel realizes too late that they’re covered in snow and water and getting his fur damp as effectively as if _he’d_ been the one who’d decided to sled all the way to Chara’s apartment. 

An unamused Chara entered next, neatly taking off their coat and hat and hanging them up. “Frisk, I told you this would happen. At least don’t tread snow all over my house.” 

Asriel laughed. Frisk shoved their shoes in a corner and started skating across the floor in their socks, spinning around and around. They’d obviously been here before, which made sense. 

“Nice place,” he commented. 

“I cleaned up before you came,” Chara said, which explained a lot. “Imagine it, though- I’ve got this nice apartment just sitting here that I could go to, and instead I’m sleeping over in the first-year dorms with you guys half the time.” 

“It’s because you love us,” Asriel said with a grin, reaching over and fixing Chara’s hair.

Chara made a face. “I do, and I hate it. Alright, who’s ready to have the best, or the worst, or _definitely_ the most interesting, winter holidays of their life?” 

\---

Christmas in Hometown started quietly. Asriel would always be the first to get up, shaking Kris awake. When Kris was a little kid, they’d always wait near the fireplace hoping to catch Santa going down, only to fall asleep and have Asgore carry them up. Now they were fifteen, they’d rub their eyes and follow Asriel down. 

The Christmas tree always looked really pretty that early in the morning, glowing like all the stars had come down from the sky and settled on the branches. There’d be presents surrounding it, and Asriel and Kris would wait in barely contained excitement to wake their parents at eight.

Christmas in the city, apparently, started with Frisk blowing an airhorn next to his ear and signing “MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS” as loudly and expressively as they could.

Asriel peeled them off. “It’s like, five am.” 

“Time is an illusion. C’mon, Chara’s up too. Or if they weren’t, they will be. We got presents!” 

Chara emerged, rubbing their eyes. “Okay, I got you both presents, but I may take it back if you keep being loud.” 

Frisk sat back on their haunches, practically bouncing from excitement. Asriel handed out his first- two packages with brightly colored wrappings. Chara got snowflakes, and Frisk little cardinal birds and robins. 

Chara took painstakingly long to unwrap theirs, taking off all the little pieces of tape and folding up the wrapping. Finally, they get to the actual present- a damascus steel dagger with little carvings on the hilt and a red sheath. They grin, actually grin, not the little fleeting happy smiles that are all Asriel’s used to getting from them. “Thank you!”

“Can I open mine now?” Frisk asked. 

“Wow, who knew you were such a little excited kid at Christmas?” Asriel joked. “Go ahead.” 

Frisk ripped the paper off and unveiled _The Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravendale._ “A D&D book?” 

“Oh, come on, you’re a nerd at heart, just admit it.” 

Frisk smiled a bit to themself “Okay, I admit it, I am.” They started flipping through their book. “Oh, this is _cool._ I got something for you, hang on-” 

They get a package from under the couch. Asriel unwrapped it with barely concealed excitement- 

… it’s a potted plant. His utter dismay must have shown on his face, because Frisk laughed. 

“Just kidding! That’s for Chara.” 

Chara took the plant from Asriel and critically looked it over. “Nice, thanks.” 

“Oh, what? I go to all these lengths to get you a present and this is what I get?” 

“You did give it to Asriel,” Chara pointed out, “but fine. I like it.” 

Frisk’s actual present for Asriel turned out to be a few CDs by artists he liked. 

Then it was Chara’s turn. They handed out two matching boxes, blushing even more than usual.

“Okay, so I kind of got dumb and sentimental with these, but here.” 

Asriel opens his first- inside is a softly glowing gold necklace with a heart locket hanging off of it. He lifted it out, turning it around so he could better look at it. Inscribed on the front are the letters _B.F.F._

Frisk pulled out one of their own, immediately undoing the clasp and fastening it around their neck. Asriel put his on as well, letting the locket fall over his heart.

“Right where it belongs,” Chara said softly.

If this is what the real world is like, Asriel thought, he likes it much better than Hometown.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic's assigned themesong (the song lyrics in the summary) is don't come down by the maine!
> 
> please leave a comment if you liked this! i feed on them for survival


End file.
